THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 22, 1995 TAG: 9507220051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, THEATER CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
``NEW PLAYS for Dog Days'' is a unique and challenging theater adventure that offers something new, a great deal that is blue, but nothing that is borrowed.
Located in the Generic Theater, where the tiny air-conditioning units and the playwrights work valiantly against the odds, it is the one hope for new theater ideas this summer.
The theater is attempting something that Broadway failed to do in the past year: find five new scripts that can attract audiences.
Having celebrated the adventure of the concept, we can settle down to the customary moaning and groaning about the awful quality of some of the writing on view.
The festival opened last week with two promising, but undeveloped, one-act efforts: ``The Furniture'' by Beth Chenosky and ``You're Trespassing On My Planet'' by Greg Silva - both Virginia Beach playwrights.
That brings us to the unfortunate current entry, ``The Daughters of Lear,'' written by Los Angeles playwright Jocelyn Seagrave. It's a decidedly dismal evening of platitudes. Misery reigns supreme.
It seems that the girls, appropriately named Goneril, Cordelia and Regan, have a father who was obsessed with his position as a Shakespearean actor. You might expect a modern version of ``King Lear,'' but you are spared that concept. Instead, with a few Shakespearean teases, we are given a modern dysfunctional family with a great deal of trouble in the past.
That is the play's main problem. The traumas, and conflicts, mostly occurred in past years. Now, all we get is a great deal of flailing of the air and wordy remorse. Since we have a ticket, we'd like to be involved, but we're onlookers.
Mother committed suicide 15 years ago. Father cut out five years ago. Geri (the eldest sister who, understandably prefers the nickname to her given moniker, Goneril) hated the father, and claims he was a control freak, and, at best ``no more than a pathetic character actor.'' There's been an abortion in the past, and an illegitimate birth.
Director Donna Dickerson and her all-female cast work valiantly to breathe life into this mess but they are required to mouth the lines. In this case, that is a severe handicap. The roles are conducive to overwrought interpretation.
Marisa Marsey delivers just that as Geri, an actress who has come back home and brought an ``Entertainment Tonight'' TV crew with her. Dina Mason is a lovely stage presence who, strangely, has been cast as the mousy, introverted one. Emily Cromwell can bring no more than blandness to Regan.
Only the strangest genes, or the most blatant miscasting, could make one believe these three are sisters.
One identifies with the character Cordelia when she shouts, ``There's got to be some order to this. There's just too much chaos.''
This, more appropriately titled ``daughters of leer,'' runs through Sunday and will be repeated Aug. 10. The festival tries again next week with ``All I Could See,'' billed as a poignant play about a family in the rural South. MEMO: THEATER REVIEW
What:``Daughters of Lear'' by Jocelyn Seagrave, presented as a part
of the ``New Plays for Dog Days'' series
Where: Generic Theater in Norfolk
When: Tonight at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., to be repeated Aug. 10
Tickets: $5
Call: 441-2160 by CNB